1,000+ e-bike rebates in 3 years show Yukon program’s success, say bike shop owners

Bike shop owners in Whitehorse say a rebate program for e-bikes has been very successful, and they hope to see the amount of riders continue to increase. The Yukon government’s energy branch has approved 1,195 rebates for electric bicycles since it launched them in September 2020 as part of their Good Energy program. That program doesn’t just apply to electric bikes — it also covers things like buildings, homes and electric vehicles.

Of the 1,195 rebates so far, 213 of them have been for e-cargo bikes, which have an extended frame to allow for more passengers and weight capacity. The rest of those rebates have gone toward more standard e-bikes. Judy Booth is the low-carbon transition unit manager at the energy branch.

“We started giving out e-bike rebates and cargo bike rebates in 2020 and they’ve been consistently very popular the whole time,” she said. While the lion’s share of the rebates have been for e-bikes in Whitehorse, about a hundred of them have gone to communities like Dawson City, Beaver Creek and Old Crow. Dean Eyre, owner and operator of Cadence Cycle in Whitehorse, said the interest for them really grew in the past few years.

“We kept hearing about how big it was for the South and in Europe, but it did take quite some time to catch on here,” he said. Jonah Clark, the owner and operator of Icycle Sports in Whitehorse, told CBC he’d seen a nearly tenfold increase in demand for e-bikes over the last five years. “These days, over 50 per cent of our e-bikes we’re selling for utility commuter purposes,” Clark said.

“We have lots of customers who have sold one of two cars and replaced it with a cargo bike. “It’s a really successful program because it lowers the barrier to using a bicycle as a means of, you know, picking up your kids, doing your groceries, doing all these like short travel trips that people would normally do with cars around town. ” Jonah Clark of Icycle Sports says he hopes to see demand continue to grow for e-bikes.

(Asad Chishti/CBC) The increased ridership and e-bikes (and bikes) out on the streets has also revealed some growing pains in terms of city cycling infrastructure, as well as the experience of the ridership, according to Eyre — cycling trails and paths aren’t necessarily connected, and they’re being developed at different rates. At the same time, Eyre said he’s heard from people who say getting an e-bike has been a transformative experience. “There’s people that kind of regained the freedom and a sense of what it was like to be a kid, that they lost a long time ago, and they got it back,” he said.

Draft bylaw in Whitehorse seeks to encourage e-bike use E-bike sales are surging, say Yukon retailers Clark said he hopes that in the longer term, more people will see cycling as a viable alternative to driving. “At the end of the day, even with EVs coming into the market, there’s a lot of energy that’s required to move a massive vehicle like that. The amount of energy to move an electric bicycle or a bicycle without an electric assist is minimal.

And it’s a massive impact on our environment and health around us in our community,” Clark said. .